May 01, 2010

Bigotgate

After Sachsgate, Lippygate and Watergate (I blogged on -gate words here), there's now Bigotgate, so named because the prime minister called a woman bigoted without realising his microphone was switched on.

There was an interesting, albeit lighthearted, discussion on Radio 4's Today this morning (listen again for another week here) about the language of politics from an American perspective. One of the interviewees made reference to Mel Brooks who apparently thought that the sounds of words were as important as their meaning. The interviewee said that the sounds of the word bigot were as much to blame for the furore as the meaning of the word -- the hard consonant sounds (all plosives) more or less drowned out the short vowel sounds, making the word sound mean and nasty. Had Gordon Brown described the woman as "having a prejudicial point of view", said the American interviewee, no-one would have paid much attention.